Socio-cultural messages, body image, and body change strategies in men

The thesis found that men received information about the ideal male body from perceived media messages and peers through encouragement, teasing, or modelled behaviours. Body mass index (BMI) also influenced participant's perceptions of their body-image and the strategies they used to change their shape. Sexual partners generally held positive views of men's body shape and weight. The portfolio examines the barriers experienced by individuals with co-occuring disorders within the current treatment system, by analysing four case studies.

Teaching and learning about force with a representational focus : pedagogy and teacher change

A large body of research in the conceptual change tradition has shown the difficulty of learning fundamental science concepts, yet conceptual change schemes have failed to convincingly demonstrate improvements in supporting significant student learning. Recent work in cognitive science has challenged this purely conceptual view of learning, emphasising the role of language, and the importance of personal and contextual aspects of understanding science. The research described in this paper is designed around the notion that learning involves the recognition and development of students’ representational resources. In particular, we argue that conceptual difficulties with the concept of force are fundamentally representational in nature. This paper describes a classroom sequence in force that focuses on representations and their negotiation, and reports on the effectiveness of this perspective in guiding teaching, and in providing insight into student learning. Classroom sequences involving three teachers were videotaped using a combined focus on the teacher and groups of students. Video analysis software was used to capture the variety of representations used, and sequences of representational negotiation. Stimulated recall interviews were conducted with teachers and students. The paper reports on the nature of the pedagogies developed as part of this representational focus, its effectiveness in supporting student learning, and on the pedagogical and epistemological challenges negotiated by teachers in implementing this approach.

Psychosocial correlates of body image and body change behaviors among Malaysian adolescent boys and girls

This study used a psychosocial framework to investigate the relationships between BMI, body dissatisfaction, body change behaviors and mental health/behavioral problems amongst a sample of 513 Malay, Indian and Chinese adolescent boys and girls in Malaysia who completed questionnaires assessing these variables. Expected gender differences were not found in relation to body dissatisfaction or engagement in strategies to increase weight, but boys reported greater engagement in strategies to increase muscles. Relationships between body dissatisfaction and engagement in body change behaviors and mental health/behavioral problems varied across race and gender. These findings suggest that the psychosocial framework is a useful way to conceptualise body dissatisfaction and related behaviors, and that caution should be exercised in generalising findings across gender and culture.

Community resilience, climate change, sustainability & engagement : adventures in creative project-based education on the Eyre Peninsula

Teaching sustainability ethics and creative practical technological applications holistically, in a multi-disciplinary ethos, with real community engagement is fraught with pedagogical and logistical issues. This paper reviews a highly community-acclaimed tertiary course/project, offered at the School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture & Urban Design at the University of Adelaide, undertaken on the Eyre Peninsula in 1st semester 2009. The course successfully enhanced student appreciation of rural community capacity building and economic fragility issues while undertaking a project-based approach to interrogating and working with rural communities to devise and demonstrate potential micro-relevant design and planning initiatives that could strengthen community resilience, climate change adaptiveness, and validate natural resource management aims within townships. The project involved some 120 students in 6 host communities through 6 local municipalities with the full support of the Natural Resource Management (NRM) Board and Local Government Association (LGA).

The paper reviews the project, its historical evolution, aims, objectives, learning strategies, community aspirations and outcomes, and positions such against various professional education accreditation frameworks. The methodological learning process, including its philosophical, pedagogical and instruments outcomes are reviewed and interrogated. The student learning outcomes, University reputation impact, and community impact, professional practice knowledge and skill attributes, and instrumental outcomes are also reviewed drawing upon evidence derived from extensive meetings, questionnaire surveys, synergistic NRM-sponsored research projects, student evaluation of teachings (SELTS), and local media coverage of the project.

The project has received applause from the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) and Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA), and preliminary endorsement from the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA), as being integral to the School’s curriculum that achieves their professional accreditation expectations of key learning experiences relevant to climate change, master planning and design, and community engagement. The project offers a possible educational model that enriches student experience and learning and addresses recent generic university community engagement policy expectations.

Land use change and nutrients simulation for the Siah Darvishan basin of the Anzali wetland region, Iran

The Anzali Ramsar Convention wetland is located in an ecologically and economically important region in Iran. The wetland is largely surrounded by agriculture, natural forests and rangelands (approximately 36% and 63%, respectively). Urban areas consist of less than 1% of the total area. Urban land use produces the highest rates of nutrient transfer into the lake as TN, TP and BOD5 equal to 24, 2.4 and 79 Kg/ha/year, respectively, whilst, natural land use produces the lowest rate as 10, 1.3 and 27 kg/ha/year. These results will inform the future sustainable management of this important wetland in this ever increasingly water stressed region in Iran.

Body image and body change strategies among Tongan adolescents in Tonga and New Zealand

Aim : The aim of this study was to evaluate the body image and body change strategies of adolescents from Tonga, and Tongans who are resident New Zealand.

Method : In total, 598 Tongans from Tonga and 388 Tongans from New Zealand completed measures of body image, body change strategies and messages about their body.

Results : Tongans in Tonga were more likely to receive positive messages about a larger body from adults at school, church and the media, and losing weight from the media. They were also more likely to adopt strategies to lose weight, increase weight and increase muscles.

Conclusion : The large body ideal appears to be still valued in Tonga, whereas Tongans also want to lose weight because of media messages to achieve a healthy body weight.

A non-darcian numerical modeling in domed enclosures filled with heat-generating porous media

Numerical study of the natural-convection flow and heat transfer in a dome-shaped, heat-generating, porous enclosure is considered. The general conic equation for the top dome is used to consider various conical top sections such as circular, elliptical, parabolic, and hyperbolic. The individual effect of fluid Rayleigh, Darcy, and heat-generating parameters on flow patterns and heat transfer rates are analyzed and presented. The predicted results show that the heat-generating parameter has the most significant contribution toward the growth of bicellular core flow. Moreover, there is significant change in temperature distribution in comparison to rectangular enclosures, due to the existence of the domed-shape top adiabatic cover. The results also show that, regardless of Darcy and Rayleigh values, a flat adiabatic top cover tends to yield the highest value of Nusselt number, followed by circular, elliptical, parabolic, and hyperbolic top covers, respectively.

Aiming for change by degrees

Our federal Education Minister believes too many Australians are falling through the cracks, writes Joanna Mather.

Addressing a group of doctoral graduates in Melbourne recently, federal Education Minister Julia Gillard used Barack Obama's election victory in the US to drive home the social and economic imperatives for getting more poor and disadvantaged Australians into universities.

Can art change minds where science can't?

How can art communicate to a sceptical public the current state of climate? Scientists agree human influence is paramount in explaining climate change, but the public at large is not drawn naturally to science education. With this in mind, art’s power to target the emotions of an audience could be particularly effective.

Youth, media and culture in the Asia Pacific region

Youth, Media and Culture in the Asia Pacific Region presents an analysis of youth media activities in a diverse, but geographically connected Asia Pacific region. The region, which is spatially connected by its colonial and imperial past, is becoming a significant player in the globalized world. In this context, youth situated in these economically, politically and socially structured communities are redefining their locales through their patterns of media use. The discourse of ‘youth’ in this disparate region is manifest in the media through their identity articulations and social activism. The book illustrates that these ‘youth subcultures’ in the Asia Pacific are part of the well marketed global consumerism culture, and yet at other times independent of the commodifying impetus of global capital. It draws on case studies to examine some of the media practices youth in the region are engaged in and elucidates the process of social change taking place in some Asia Pacific nations.

'This book contributes to the important and growing field of youth media studies. The regionalization of media research is necessarily recuperated here, bringing large populations of media users into a frame of reference that allows critical reflection on the new waves of use and sociality in the Asia Pacific region.'

The promise of a new media and development agenda

The role of the press is underpinned by a concern for public welfare, and the discourses and debates in journalism practice and theory stem from the notion that the press is one of the pillars of a democracy and an essential element of the public sphere (Rosen, 2005; Dahlgren and Sparks, 1991). The public sphere, in turn, is linked to the theory of modernisation and the development agenda of a society, where the media are expected to play an important function as watchman, policy disseminator and teacher (Schramm, 1964). This article looks at citizen journalism’s potential to provide yet another opportunity to disadvantaged communities in India to communicate with the world, via information and communication technologies. The new media also open up the possibility of these earlier disenfranchised communities becoming partners in the country’s development and democratic agenda. This is a discussion paper based on a survey of initiatives undertaken by various community groups in India to provide a voice to local communities who would otherwise remain silent. It explores the impact of these citizen journalism initiatives on local communities vis-à-vis their effectiveness as a tool for development and social change, and argues that the growth and success of these initiatives around the world, though piecemeal, should become an important part of discourse concerning the role of journalism in society.